Monthly Learning Journal 11 (4/1/2021)

Hi RIP readers, welcome to the Monthly Learning journal, hopefully in its final frequency format.

I started my curation series with the ambition to publish an episode on each Monday, but it lasted for just 3 weeks. I slowed the frequency down to “every other Monday”, and it lasted another 7 episodes.

I hope the Monthly format (first Monday of each month) will be sustainable for me to publish, and rich enough for you to appreciate.

I didn’t take into account that the total time spent reading/watching/listening to podcasts didn’t slow down on my side. Halving publishing frequency implies doubling posts size 🙂

To avoid reducing the series to a Dirac distribution, I’m also going to filter much harder. Moving more content down to the “Other Content” section, and sadly cutting some good content out.

Maybe I’ll switch back to a weekly or biweekly format, but drastically limiting the number of entries. Or maybe I’ll move this series directly in my public Roam Database. Who knows! I only know I love this series so I’ll keep posting 🙂

This Month WLJ themes are: journaling and self reflection, anti-FIRE, investing, decision making and productivity, fake gurus and more.

Unlike many previous editions, I haven’t found anything “spectacular” (rating above 8/10) this cycle. I haven’t searched very hard though, but maybe some of the new discoveries will last in the long term, bringing more value over time 😉

Next Episode on February 1st, 2021.

Enjoy!

 

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RIP News

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The first block of each WLJ (yeah, the acronym will stay the same) will be about my website, what happened in the previous month, what’s going to happen in the next one, and maybe some official communications 🙂

December 2020 has been an intense month, more intense than I expected. I wasn’t able to finish reading Designing Your Life, and to launch a poll for the next book in the RIP Book Club. I’ll do my best to complete it by end of January 2021, and we can select a new book for February 2021. But maybe I’ve added too much on my plate.

This month I’ll publish the 2020 Q4 Update, which will be huge, and probably a follow-up announcing new projects and more commitment to my blog.

Stay tuned 😉

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The Italian Leather Sofa post about my blog (RIP/10)

Link

A nice article by an Italian Blogger who lives in London and works in Finance (I guess).

There are praises but also an honest analysis of my situation and my recent investing mistakes.

While reading the article I felt the urge to coach myself. It’s been like viewing myself from the above.

I can’t thank ILS (Nicola) enough. I also wrote a long comment on that post in reply.

Enjoy!

But you’re completely wrong, I AM a spreadsheet!! 🙂

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Meta: RIP’s yearly “spirituality” routine

Link

A list of links I watch/read/listen to once per year. I clean the list from time to time, and I append new stuff. Given that o of this month WLJ theme is “journaling and self reflection”, I guess this is a good place where to share it 🙂

 

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Main Content

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Rational Reminder Podcast with Ben Felix and William Bernstein (8/10)

Link

An Incredibly good episode of RR about risk, asset allocation, and investor lifecycle. A must watch if you’re like me, scared by the vertical market and by a sunsetting career.

At the linked timestamp, Bernstein says that how risky stocks are depends on where on your investment lifecycle you are. A young investor should pray for a market crash, an old person should hope for good returns. In accumulation phase sequence risk works in your favor.

Enjoy!

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Cal Newport about The Rise and Fall of GTD (7.5/10)

Link – Roam Notes & Highlights

Long essay by Cal about history of modern productivity.

The story of Merlin Mann, creator of “Inbox Zero” is fascinating 🙂

I see that today there’s a hiatus between the “Just In Time Management” crowd, captained by Tiago Forte, and the Deep Work folks.

Interesting “battle”, and while I’m more inclined to join Cal (team #DeepWork!) my goal is to take advices from both sides. Sadly we can’t just focus on “one thing at a time”, at least not at my age, with a family, a job, a blog, and an endless craving for knowledge 🙂

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The Plain Bagel about FIRE (7.5/10)

Link

A very good, down to earth, honest analysis of the tradeoffs that FIRE requires. Not an open critique, but a honest assessment.

Exactly because it’s well argued, it feels like a cold shower to a FIRE seeker. But I must admit I agree with most of what Richard said. FIRE is Dead!

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Morgan Housel’s “few things I’m sure about” (7.5/10)

Link

Several life lessons from one of the most brilliant guy on the internet.

I’m reporting here just two of them:

Most professions would benefit from at least one a day month where you did nothing but think. No meetings, no calls, no deliverables. Just a seat on the couch Thinking about what’s working, what’s not, and what to do about it. One day a week is necessary for some fields. But it’s rare, because sitting on the couch doesn’t look like work, so managers raise an eyebrow – even if it’s obvious that if your job involves thinking you should be given time to think.

Daniel Kahneman says a key to investing is having “a well-calibrated sense of your future regret”, which might actually be the key to understanding all forms of risk. You know exactly how much risk to take if you know exactly when you will cry Uncle when things don’t work out.

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Early Retirement Now on beating the stock market (7.5/10)

Link

A bit clickbait title (forgiven to Big ERN 😉 ), but a very good article that shows reasonable ways to increase expected returns at the expense of risk, for example via leverage if you’re young.

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Anthony Gustin Annual Review Template (7.5/10)

Link – Backup Copy on my Drive

I discovered Gustin thanks to a tweet by Nat Eliason. His Annual Review template is very deep, but I must admit I didn’t use it for my short annual review. Anyway, I plan to take inspiration from it in my self reflection and journaling practice 😉

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Code Dot Org (7.5/10)

Link

In December, three friends independently asked me “hey RIP, what do you think is the best way for my child age 7-10 to learn coding?”

I didn’t have a answer ready. I had to consult my nerdy friends who are already teaching software development to their kids, and do my own research on top of theirs.

And I came up with code.org.

It’s the best place where to learn coding, playing, having fun, take coding/algorithmic challenges, and code for real. There is content appropriate for almost any age, even up to adult age!

Have fun, kids!

(but mind that this is NOT what you’ll actually work on when you’ll be an adult software engineer. You’d be maintaining crappy code, writing glue code, writing justifications and filling time-sheets for each working hour – like creativity loves to be accountable – you spent on projects that are listed in biweekly “sprints” and much more. That’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, machine learning would dominate everything and you’ll be labeling data for a black-box piece of code whose only reason to exist is to identify Chihuahuas among Muffins)

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James Altucher show with Anne Duke (7.5/10)

Link

I don’t like J.A. as a podcast Host. He interrupts the guests too frequently and he always talks about himself… but Anne Duke is a goldmine of rationality.

This podcast is about Decision Making (Anne Duke’s new book), Artificial Intelligence, Games & Game Theory.

Enjoy!

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r/financialindependence thread about luck and money (7.5/10)

Link

It’s a personal story of a black person with no money, no job, no security, no financial literacy, no family members to rely on… how can this person reach wealth? And what about eventually keeping the wealth?

It’s very hard to try to comprehend how tough life is for many people all around the world. I’m not good at it. I would have no clue where to start helping someone with so many layers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid to climb.

The comment section is full of gems, make yourself a favor and read it.

I wonder what would Naval say to this guy…

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Italian – Roberto Mercadini about the Paradox of Schooling (7.5/10)

Link

Roberto studies and learns all the time. About whatever he likes. He can’t accept to know nothing about entire important fields of knowledge.

I’m like him.

Do schools teach you how to be such a curious animal?

Sadly, the answer is no.

Enjoy!

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Cal Newport about a better Social Internet (7.5/10)

Link

Cal’s been vocal against the risk of having large monopolies own your data and your attention.

He advocates for having no huge company owning your social data (posts, pictures, social connections). You could grant access to third party, and even get paid for their use, but your data belong to you.

He linked an existing Open Source project named Solid (link), ideated by Tim Berners-Lee, where your digital data is stored in decentralized servers called Pods.

It seems a bit utopian to me (who’s going to quit the existing platforms?), but it’s a discussion the public should be having right now.

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David Cain about Ownership (7/10)

Link

This post and the above one complete the mini rabbit hole about ownership and control.

David’s example of the paper dictionary vs an online dictionary is enlightening. Apparently I’m not the only one who feels too much discomfort in relying solely on the web. Try to find a cooking recipe online without the urge to get back into a physical recipe book because of ads, popups, and horrible signal to noise ratio. In a word: the bullshit web.

Own your tools!

Ok, the rabbit hole started long ago. Re-read Derek Sivers’ “use the internet, not just companies“.

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Michael Lewis “Against the Rules” Podcast Season 2 about Coaching (7/10)

“The Invisible Coach” Link – “The Coach Effect” Link

Michael Lewis is on my infinite “to read” list. At list a dozen of friends recommended me to read his books, mainly Flash Boys and Liar’s Poker.

In 2019 he launched a podcast called Against the Rules. It’s organized in seasons. We’re now in season 2, and the theme is Coaching.

Since I’m planning to start offering coaching services (not for free this time, sorry), I’m of course interested in the topic. Coaching and Michael Lewis, I’ll kill two birds with one stone!

I’ve listened to two episodes while walking in the woods: “The invisible Coach” and “The Coach Effect”.

I didn’t like the structure of the podcasts to be honest. I was expecting a classic podcast with a host and (probably, but not necessary) one or more guests.

Each podcast is structured in a way to resemble a narrated story, a scripted audio documentary.

in each episode, the narrator (Michael Lewis) tells a story, interviews several participants, and there’s a kind of conclusion.

And it’s not about “coaching” like I thought. Well, it’s not even NOT about coaching… you have to listen to the episodes.

overall, it’s been a weird experience. I liked some passages, mostly from the second episodes I listed above (The Coach Effect), but it was not a standard podcast. I will surely listen to few more episodes, but i’s not a podcast that keeps me glued to it.

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Ben Carlson about Shiller’s Excess CAPE Yield (7/10)

Link

Everybody on the internet is now telling us that “yes, stocks are extremely expensive but there’s no alternative (T.I.N.A.) and let me tell you why stocks may be not as expensive as you think…”

Ben Carlson shared a recent study by Robert Shiller (Nobel prize, the guy who introduced the CAPE indicator) where he introduced another market indicator called ECY (Excess CAPE Yield, link).

ECY is the Earnings Yield (inverse of CAPE) minus the 10 years treasury yield.

It essentially measures how much stocks are expected to yield (EY) above 10y government bonds.

Because we all love when CAPE is ~10, but if that happens when bonds yield is 15% then maybe stocks are expensive. Today CAPE is ~34 (!!), which translates in Earning Yield of ~3%. Maybe it’s “not that bad” exactly because bonds yield almost zero.

I don’t know… I’m not sure I buy this argument. Shiller himself said “I see bubbles everywhere” just a year ago. Now what? The FED lowered the interest rate by 1% and we should all be bullish?

I’m definitely not buying this argument.

Anyway, here’s a graph that shows you ECY and 10 years total excess returns (stocks-treasury). There’s indeed a nice correlation:

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Banker on Wheels (7/10)

Link

I discovered this blog by a CFA with FIRE ambitions who loves to bike around the world thanks to a former Hooli colleague who shared it with me.

I read several of his guides, very well done! I’ll take inspiration from you, Raph 😉

Anyway, the article that I’ve found most valuable are:

• On short and medium term investing. Link. Nice analysis of risk-return for stocks and bonds! A bit biased toward past results though… I don’t think the risk of a 60-40 Portfolio having negative returns on a 5 years holding period in the future is just 2% as history tells us.
• On long term investing. Link. I like the diversification between “Golden Retriever”, “World Cyclist” and Banker”, with decreasing level of “passivity” 🙂
• On Global Stocks ETF. Link. Very good! Mostly EU domiciled though, no VT.

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Indeedably about 2020 and Hope (7/10)

Link

A great article, by a great blogger! I can’t help but copy verbatim its best passages:

2020 has been a year of Cognitive Dissonance. What we have personally experienced differing greatly from the narratives we have been told.

The real economy is supposedly in the toilet, yet our pensions and brokerage account balances display near-record market highs.

Unemployment is said to be a ticking time bomb, yet already high property prices are skyrocketing.

Governments have been printing money like it is going out of fashion, yet there is little talk of the inflation that typically follows, a feature by design used to deflate away vast government pandemic debts.

1 in 1,000 Britains have died from COVID, the civilian body count equaling that of the Blitz. Yet this time the enemy is not flying a different flag or preaching a different ideology. It is ourselves.

Endless televised drama and uncertainty made 2020 feel eventful. Black Lives Matter. Brexit. Bushfires. Climate change. COVID. Hacking. Hurricanes. Rampant corruption. Stacked courts. Stolen elections. Trade wars. Trumpism. Vaccines.

Yet for many of us, 2020 has proven remarkably uneventful in person.

Many of the pandemic wrought lifestyle changes will prove temporary. Others more permanent. Becoming normalised over time, as the “new normal” proves too tempting or too costly to give up.

Some may feel like their lives have been on pause throughout 2020.

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Alex West tweet about Money as Runway (7/10)

Twitter Link

I don’t remember how I discovered Alex West on Twitter, probably because someone I follow retweeted him a couple of times.

This guy quit his job to follow his entrepreneur dreams. Not a unique story, but I immediately empathized with him 🙂

Bonus:

Twitter Link

Good luck! 🙂

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Our World in Data study on parenting time (7/10)

Link

Even though it seems counterintuitive, and we all feel busier than ever, we’re spending much more time on average with our kids.

Except French. What’s wrong with you? (psst, I’m joking, please tell me the secret!)

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Alex Becker and Spencer Cornelia (7/10)

Several links below.

I discovered Alex Becker thanks to an “authentic or charlatan” video by Spencer Cornelia (link). Apparently this guy has acted as a “Tai Lopez”-like Fake Guru for many years… but he kind of repented.

Spencer’s video shows two Alex personas. He was a charlatan, but he finally “cleaned” himself. Take a look at some of Alex’s comments below the video. It’s a nice admission of having been guilty of extreme marketing.

The comment section is pretty good. It’s a “tactics vs fundamentals” discussion that I would call formative. Today Fake Guru explosions has been possible because like Jacob Lund Fisker once said “we’re Big on Methods and Poor on Fundamentals“.

Alex publicly replied to Spencer (Link), and Spencer re-replied back (link). First time I see a constructive conversation from a (former?) Fake Guru and a Fake Guru Hunter 🙂

Then I watched few more videos from Alex Becker, and I must admit I like him a lot!

Take a look at this one on Minimalism (link)! There are few more videos about money, freedom, ownership, passion. And he has nothing to sell to you now! Good guy Alex.

But my favorite video so far is this one about How to spot bad Biz Gurus. Link. Some very good points on mentoring, coaching, and online courses starting at minutes 15 more or less:

• Don’t seek for those 1M times more successful than you, look for those 1.5-10x you. Seek them out, they’re easier to reach.
• Don’t listen those who are successful only via selling courses for wat their courses are about, they’re now expert at selling courses (and maybe you want to listen to their “selling courses” business advices)
• Try to find people that don’t have anything to gain by sharing information with you, not those who want to sell you a course. Or look for low end courses from people who are doing what you want to do and make courses for a side income.
• Look for trends among smart people. Get a list of top 10 smart people you admire and see the trends between them. If you see something being repeated by many of them, it’s usually a good sign that’s going to be a useful piece of information

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Brandon Toner about Atomic Journaling (7/10)

Link

Very Roam-centric approach to journaling, which is using the same strategy I adopted for habit tracking (but I use it in conjunction with Roam Delta Feature, {{[[∆]]:1+0}}), that can be improved with templates or Roam42 SmartBlock.

Ok, too nerdy, I know. I’m living inside Roam Research 🙂

Bonus: Brandon Toner’s article about Digital Gardening (link), and his public Roam Database (link).

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Andy Henson’s 191 Journaling prompts (7/10)

Link

Yeah, journaling, self reflection, morning pages… are you into that? I am. Maybe too much!

This post on Andy’s blog contains almost 200 prompts split by category.

Happy journaling!

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Italian – Le Iene special about Mirko Scarcella (6.5/10)

Link

An Italian “Instagram Guru” deeply exposed by an Italian TV show.

Holy shit what I have seen… It’s 3+ hours long, but totally worth it!

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Monevator “What if FIRE doesn’t work?” (6.5/10)

Link

This article deserves a full post in response, and maybe I’ll write one later this month.

Yes, I’m a contrarian and I have my own doubts about FIRE, especially about its math… but the FIRE critiques raised in this article are a bit weak. Way weaker than what we’ve seen in Richard Coffin’s video above.

Anyway, the article made me think and reassess my own position, so it’s worth a mention here.

Bonus: read this article by J.D. Roth about common FIRE misconception (link). This is the way to formulate, steel man, and answer most of the anti-FIRE arguments (except the one about kids… nope, it’s not possible to FIRE with kids bro!)

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FInmus about Early Retirement being boring (6.5/10)

Link

Yeah, “critiques to FIRE” is another common theme of this WLJ. It seems national sport these days.

Anyway, this is an interesting post about a guy who’s FI with a 1.5% SWR (wow, congrats!). He’s 50 years old, and he retired a few years ago.

He’s bored and going back to work.

Why?

I seemed to have discovered the inverse ‘Goldilocks Zone’ of financial independence. Rich enough to do nothing but not rich enough to do anything particularly interesting.

Frankly, I was bored.

Yeah, but why?

• Everyone else is at work (including my wife)
• My wife expects me, not unreasonably, to do all the domestic chores
• I have a very conservative SWR (1.5%) – so I don’t have the spare cash to buy an island
• My kids are at the age where there’s nothing less cool than spending time with parents
• The marginal benefits of recreational cycling, particularly on one’s own, drop off pretty quickly
• I missed the buzz
• Probably hardest to admit: I know quite a few seriously rich and powerful people (I went to the sort of university where that’s inevitable). Everyone else was doing more important things than me, which left me feeling pretty inadequate. I mean every time I hear one of them interviewed on the Today programme, I can’t help but think: FFS!

In the end, he got a new job that pays way less but he’s happier. Good for you.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. it seems we all are falling into a new “hustle until you die” rat race. We’re planning how to escape “the” rat race, but in the meantime many people in the FIRE community built a different cage.

Guys, give me a break!

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Gentleman Family Finance about FIRE and Unretirement (6/10)

Link

Nope, no break RIP!

FIRE is boring, undesirable, a fad!

I think that it’s become increasingly obvious that FIRE in its many forms is not quite for me. So this is the death of FIRE – extinguishing the flames of hope from my wallet and my heart.

As much as there’s been an explosion of interest in what is called FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), it remains something that is inherently undesirable in itself and unless backed by a rigorous framework of activities, interests and action. And you can’t spell framework without “work”.

Oh come on…

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Mr Money Mustache is optimistic about 2021 (5/10)

Link

A mediocre article, a sign that 3M has nothing much left to say. A former amazing blog, slowly dying out. Ok, cool, he told us that he’s donating a lot of money to charities – and that’s a great thing. Money that he’s making out of his blog, from his affiliate links.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not harming the world… he’s recommending products that are paying a high referral for a reason: because they’re bad for the consumer.

For example, he recommends BrownHost, the shittiest hosting service in the world.

I hosted my blog with BrownHost for 4 years, and I can tell they’re the shittiest hosting platform ever. But they pay a high referral fee, and thanks to that they’re the main hosting platform recommended directly by WordPress! That’s why I’m skeptical about affiliate marketing.

Yes, you’re donating a lot of money to charity, but you’re doing it with dirty money that has been pumped out of unaware and unhappy consumers, as a small fraction of what a bad business kept for itself.

I’m sorry but recommending BrownHost breaks my ethical rules… maybe I need to unfollow our dear MMM.

P.S. I hanged hosting recently. Website speed went up, hassles went down.

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What Life Could Be blog shut down ( 🙁 / 10)

Dead Link to their last article – saved PDF version

Sad to hear my dear friends shat down their blog 🙁

Ok, they already told me their intentions few months ago, but it’s still sad to reach a 404 page.

The White have been very active in the European FIRE Community, organizing the Financial Independence week (FIWE, now hosted on FIREhub) for several years. I only attended FIWE once, and it’s been an amazing experience. The White even hosted me at their flat, and we played boardgames together…

I’ve first “met” them digitally thanks to an inspiring post about a “community” that triggered my “I have a dream” response. I still have that dream…

I was also hosted on their blog for a guest post, not a thing I usually do.

We need to talk guys…

 

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Other Content

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Here follows a list of other resources I’ve consumed over the last month that didn’t make into the main section 🙂

Spencer Cornelia “Authentic or Charlatan” video about Jay Shetty. Link. The final two minutes on “turning Passion into a Business” (Link) is worth a mention on this WLJ

Nish on “How to run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People”. Link. Amazing! Beware of FIRE Bloggers! 🙂

Kurzgesagt video about the Earth being kicked out of the Solar System and becoming a rogue planet. Link. It could have already happened, in Switzerland we wouldn’t have noticed… yeah, I’m missing the Sun.

Another Kurzgesagt video, this time about Mind Upload: how the brain works, and how/if we could  upload our brain in a simulation. Link. A lot of shootouts to Cyberpunk 2077 before it was cool.

How Nicole van der Hoeven uses Roam Research for her Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Link. How much I miss D&D… anyway, her method seems an overkill to me. But that’s how everyone probably reacts to anyone else’s Roam database 😀

Ben Carlson post about “2020 Investing Lessons”. Link. Yes, 2020 stock market has been too much for me to stomach, and I’m temporarily sitting out (and losing). “The outcomes will always seem obvious in hindsight”. “Buy and hold is still pretty hard to beat”. I should take his advices…

Mike Winnet “Contrepreneur Bingo” end of year review. Link. Amazing season, I hope there will be a season 2 in 2021!

Ita – Dario Bressanini announced he has a tumor. Link. Super sad 🙁 I wish you the best!

Costanza Pollastri (Polynerdeia) video about labels in the LGBT community. Link. Accepting your own deviation from the mainstream gender/sex identification is a tough process with individual outcomes. Yes, there are a lot of labels in the LGBTQ+ community, and maybe there’s a reason. Nice video!

The Compound video about market timing. Link. It’s an animated 6m video by Ben Carlson about “Bob” a fictional investor who only invested at peak market in the last 40 years and still retired millionaire. Very good!

Tech Lead video “Seven worst things about software engineering”. Link.  A funny video, but holy shit how much truth!

Next Avenue about Generation X vs Boomers differences in anxiety about money. Link. Good article, but every time I read stats about average saving for American households I see different data…

The Now about Meditation and Naval Ravikant. Link. Last week month I shared with you Naval’s Tweetstorm on Meditation. This article is a bit critic of Naval’s approach to Meditation. It’s a good article, should come back to this later when I’ll do Naval’s 60 days meditation challenge (not scheduled yet).

More To That Pursue Mastery not Status. Link, Roam Notes & Highlights. A nice article by MTT, a bit redundant once you’ve listened to Naval Ravikant’s “How to get Rich“. Lawrence claims that pursuing Mastery is the best alternative to playing Status games.

 

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Leisure Corner

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Now for something completely different!

We need mental challenges, but we also need Leisure time 🙂

Garry Kasparov vs Veselin Topalov immortal chess game

Link

20 years ago I was an amateur chess player. From time to time I enjoy watching historical matches and modern competitions like the Olympic Chess Games.

This old game between Kasparov and Topalov made me laugh a lot, enjoy 🙂

P.S. no, I haven’t watched The Queen’s Gambit yet!

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Italian – Una Pezza di Lundini with Luis Sal

Link

Valerio Lundini is rapidly becoming my favorite nonsense Italian comedian of all times. In this episode of “Una Pezza di Lundini” he and Luis mock copyright laws. At every re-watch you find a new hidden gem. I just discovered the AIA joke at the fifth re-watch 😀

Bonus: Disguido Stradale Drammatizzato (link). I don’t remember last time I cry-laughed!

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Italian – Boris (the Series)

I’m at the 7th re-watch I guess. Last time it was 5-6 years ago. I binge rewatched the entire series (which I think it’s the best series ever produced in Italy) in December, after having been added to a secret Facebook group of people who only talk using Boris quotes.

If you’re Italian and you haven’t heard about it (which planet have you been living on since 2007?)  make yourself a favor: binge it NOW, it’s on Netflix 😉

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Italian – Il Talento del Calabrone

A black mirror-like Italian movie with a good plot and bad acting, except Sergio Castellitto, who’s amazing!

Recommended 😉

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Italian – L’Isola delle Rose / Rose Island

A nice movie based on a real story of an Italian Engineer who built an Island in the Adriatic sea and declared the island independent in 1968.

Worth watching even though the real story is less romantic that what’s depicted in the movie 🙂

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Italian – “Io, Professione Mitomane” post about Luca Lixi

Not much to add 😀

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That’s all for this week 🙂